Health Care Costs: A Primer

May 1, 2012Source: The Kaiser Family Foundation

This primer gives a brief glimpse of available data on health care costs, and summarizes the impact of spending growth on various parts of society. The National Health Expenditure Accounts (NHEA), the source for several of the analyses shown, present the costs of care by type of health service or product (such as hospital care, physician services, or prescription drugs), sources of funds (such as private insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, or out-of-pocket by the individual patient), and types of sponsors (private business, households, and government).